Twisted
by riverrae
Summary: Who would be the last person you wanted to see if you faced the hangman's noose?


Twisted

**Disclaimer**: All implied characters belong to Nanae Chrono from her masterpiece _Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker_.

**Warning**: Might be emotionally upsetting if you're not comfortable with the idea of hanging (strangled by rope at the neck until dead). If you're a bit squeamish about that sort of thing, please don't read on. I was on a rampage when I wrote this. Kinda. Oh, and swearing. Just once, but it's a big 'un. Well, not as bad I suppose as 'cu-' - Let's not go there. Enjoy. :P

I was waiting in my cold cell when I stirred from the corner. I raised my face to the small, stone window as the bell began to chime. I was reflecting on my past life, which didn't have much time. I smiled.

At five o'clock they'd take me to the gallows pole. The orange dawn would be a brilliant backdrop to my end. The sands of time, for me, were running low.

It was all too ironic.

Motherfuckers!

As a priest came to read me the last rights, I stared out through the barred window for the last time at a world that had gone so wrong for me. I had hoped there had been some kind of error when I was dragged in there. It was hard to stop the surmounting terror; was it really the end? Couldn't it have been some crazy dream?

In my last night of solace I wanted someone to tell me I was dreaming. It was not easy to keep from screaming every foul curse on the names of those who put me in that cold cell. I could have spilled every bloody secret of one of the strongest facets of government bureaucracy. Yet strangely, the words escaped me, the syllables wouldn't distinguish themselves from the brainless sounds that I could only utter when I tried to speak.

The tears flowed down my cheeks, leaving behind a trail of salt that dried on my lip. I licked the salt and wondered why I was crying. I did not fear death for I believe there can never be an empty abyss at the end; a soul cannot be destroyed.

Heavy thudding feet told me that it was now several minutes past five in the morning and I was going to be fashionably late.

As the guards marched me out to the courtyard there was a sudden silence where only moments before the entire yard had been filled with many voices. I had heard them behind the heavy door that entered the yard. I thought I had already gone insane and had imagined the voices of fifty filthy prisoners penetrating their sub-terrain cell walls.

I walked not three paces before I had met with a sea of sunken yellow eyes peeping at me behind iron bars at ground level, each five paces apart. Then I realised that the high, top window of my cell that presented a generous view of the courtyard and gallows pole from foot level was a commodity granted to all prisoners, either impending or sentenced to death row.

The round eyes all stared at me. I knew they could see themselves in my position when it was their time. Now there was silence.

I would have preferred the crowd's whispers.

As they lead me towards the pole's elevated wooden deck I hear someone from a cell call "God be with you,"

Doubt, cynicism, despair, pessimism, all these and more entered my mind; I wondered if there is a God, why was he letting me die?

As I walk all my life flashes before me, memories that I could never wash away. Although the end was so near I could see it before me, I was not sorry. My resolve had changed from the previous night. I was determined that there is no end; I would go into the next world beyond. Beyond with a vengeance; I would crow the name of every single corrupt clansman from the tiled rooftops. These guards would need to catch my soul to kill me, before it flies away to scream those names and their crimes.

Lookout, my soul flies free-

Ah, but it's too late; I'm gone now. They were too slow to catch my soul. What a shame- there's no fun for these gates in hanging a lifeless corpse before it dies. I am far away now and don't care about this world anymore… I don't feel the pain around my throat.

My eyes glass over and I smile without seeing those that I would leave behind; except one.

That bastard.

He had entered without me realising for I had intended to give my onlookers a graceful and dignified performance. My smile had put everyone off, I'd shown no fear. Yet, he'd caught my eye as I stepped onto the trapdoor, noose and all, caught in shock and revelation. All dignity was stripped from me as my face twisted into an air of horror and anxiety. As my jaw dropped, so did the door on which I stood. The earth pulled me down with its mysterious force, but the rope around me fought against it and won.

My vision dimmed and swam before me as I saw him standing at the back of the small crowd of dignitaries to the _Daimyo_.

I suddenly didn't want to die. Not yet, not this way.

As ever, he is smoking that damn pipe of his in blue Shinsengumi uniform and smiling at me as I'm forever fixed in the realisation that my enemy is not at all dead; he was standing there before me.

Please, I don't want to … die... yet…

Trust me, my soul lives on; don't worry now that I'm gone. I've been beyond to see the truth.

So when you realise that your own time is at hand and he betrays you like he did me, maybe you will realise just why I hate your master so. I'm hanged because I love you; hanged because he realised I wanted his page; hanged because I'm Choshu and I need you.

Hanged because you love me, too.

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Please review.

I think it's pretty obvious who Hijikata and _his page_ Tetsunosuke were. Who was hanged?

I know, tell me who you think it was in your review.


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